Chapter II.

The title of God is given in one sense to Christ, and in
another to men.

The name of God would for
the faithful be amply sufficient to denote the glory of His Divinity,
but by adding “over all, God blessed,” he excludes a
blasphemous and perverse interpretation of it, for fear that some
evil-disposed person to depreciate His absolute Divinity might quote
the fact that the word God is sometimes applied by grace in the Divine
economy temporarily to men, and thus apply it to God by unworthy
comparisons, as where God says to Moses: “I have given thee as a
God to Pharaoh,”24202420Exod. vii. 1. or in this
passage: “I said ye are Gods,”24212421Ps. lxxxi.
(lxxxii.) 6.
where it clearly has the force of a title given by condescension. For
as it says “I said,” it is not a name showing power, so
much as a title given by the speaker. But that passage also, where it
says: “I have given thee as a God to Pharaoh,” shows the
power of the giver rather than the Divinity of him who receives the
title. For when it says: “I have given,” it thereby
certainly indicates the power of God, who gave, and not the Divine
nature, in the person of the recipient. But when it is said of our God
and Lord Jesus Christ, “who is over all, God blessed for
ever,” the fact is at once proved by the words, and the meaning
of the words shown by the name given: because in the case of the Son of
God the name of God does not denote an adoption by favour, but what is
truly and really His nature.